healing is not linear - A Memoir by Frances Edelstein

Chapter 9: College & Mental Health

Trigger warnings: self-deprecation, negative body image, eating disorder thoughts, describing general anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal idealation

So, now that I've talked about my relationships and their issues in my first year of college, now I'm going to cover my mental health overall and how this big change from living in South Jersey with my family to Western Pennsylvania alone affected me.

I was really scared to move there, but I already knew who my roommate was before I got there because we messaged each other beforehand and selected a room together, so that was nice.  When I got there and moved in, I started to get excited, but I didn't want my family to leave.  I hugged them many times before they finally had to leave, and I was left alone to discover this new place with Elissa (my roommate).  We would go on adventures to rite aid and the dollar store, sometimes Walmart.  That pretty much sums up what there was to do in that little town.  Everything closed early, too, and many things were closed on Sundays.  It wasn't a problem at the time, though because I made a couple more friends, Kristen being a mutual friend between Elissa and I.  We would make smores and watch movies together, Kristen would sleep in our room, and sometimes we would have a pretty good amount of people in our room at once.  Sadly, though, Kristen changed schools, and that's where things started to get a little more troubling.  The thing was, Elissa was fine sometimes, and then totally rude the next.  She loved to have all the attention, and if I said I was hanging out with a friend, she would get upset and claim I hated her because I was leaving her alone.  She would also make a point to make sure everyone around her was miserable.  I didn't notice how toxic she was until that summer when she visited, but I'll get to that later.

As time went on, I started to get more and more stressed at college.  The workload made it nearly impossible to relax, and I frequently would go to sleep past 3am because I had to finish homework I only had one and a half days to do, then wake up at 8am and not be done classes until around 7pm.  I was tired most of the time, and as classes got more and more difficult, I started to procrastinate a lot more.  I don't think a lot of people understand that procrastination isn't just being lazy; with my own personal experience, I procrastinate because I'm afraid of failure.  In my mind, if I don't do it now, I have not yet failed.  When I actually have to start doing it, that's when the possibility of failure goes up.  When I was younger, a couple people in my life teasingly called me stupid, and I have to admit, after a while, I just accepted it as a personality trait.  The funny thing is, though, it didn't make my anxiety go away, or my grades be any better.  If anything, I felt more confused and stressed because I was so focused on just getting it done on time.  Sometimes I would forget complete sections of homework, just because I was trying to race through it.  I was flustered when I did my homework, and consequently, my brain felt fuzzy and disoriented, which didn't make me feel smarter at all.  Deep in my heart, I'm sure I know I'm not stupid, it's just hard when people say otherwise so often you just get tired of arguing with them.  I think, really, that I am a pretty smart person, but also wise.  These two things are very different.  Smart is technical, a literal grading of people.  Think about it: at school you got grades, people were literally grading you based off of smartness alone.  They never asked life advice on quiz questions, never asked how you feel about humanity's place in the world.  Now, don't get me wrong, school is important, and there are an amount of jobs that have a certain standard of how smart you are.  All in all though, wisdom is just as important.  Reflecting on what life means to you, understanding what people are going through, treating people with respect, giving others advice, knowing how to deal with life's problems—these are all what I attribute to wisdom.  Yes, you could be the smartest person in the world, but if you don't give yourself time for reflection and learning about the world around you, that doesn't seem like a very fulfilled life, does it?  So, if anyone ever calls you stupid, first of all it's not true; maybe you struggle in a subject, but that doesn't make you stupid overall.  In addition, if people think you're stupid, so what?  Smartness was constructed to grade the people in society.  If you don't meet the standards, that's okay!  Not every job needs you to have a 4.0 GPA.  Many jobs, though, care about your ethics and what you believe is right and wrong.  So, sidetrack but also food for thought, smartness and wisdom are not the same.  Plus, why the hell do those people feel the need to judge you in the first place?  I think they have some underlying personal issues and insecurities themselves.  I still struggle with procrastination and the fear of failure a lot in college-related things, but with drawing and things I love, like writing this book, I don't have those fears.  I guess it's just because it makes me more relaxed so I'm not as overwhelmed as I am with studying the Baroque period.